Two bad things happened – Here’s what you need to know…

Stock Market Update Sunday, March 10th, 2019

The first bad thing: In the US, we lost an hour last night because of Daylight Savings!

The second bad thing:

The S&P was a loser every day last week.

With its worst week of the year, the S&P erased 3 weeks of gains and finished lower for the first time in 6 weeks.

Here’s what traders were focused on:

The Global Economy – The European Central Bank made it clear that they are worried about the economy. On Thursday, President Mario Draghi said that “we are (in) a period of continued weakness and pervasive uncertainty.” And because of these concerns, the ECB lowered their growth forecasts, launched a new round of cheap bank loans, and said they will hold off on interest rate hikes until at least the end of the year. Meanwhile, the euro trades near 21-month lows.

Worst Jobs Report In A Year – On Friday, February’s Jobs Report showed that only 20,000 Non-Farm Employment jobs were added. The dismal numbers were explained by weather and the government shutdown. But it was still well below the 180,000 jobs expected. Average Hourly Earnings were up a tick to 0.4% (forecast 0.3%. And the Unemployment Rate came in slightly lower at 3.8% (vs. a 3.9% forecast).

If there was a silver lining somewhere in last week’s drop, it came on Friday.

The S&P was down as much as 1.0% after the weak Jobs Report. But the index managed to bounce back and close well off of the day’s lows.

Here’s where the major indices ended the day:

The S&P finished with a 2.2% loss. Down 61 points, the S&P ended at 2,743.

The NASDAQ dropped 2.5%. With a 187 point loss, the NASDAQ finished at 7,408.

Crude Oil (CL) bounced back and forth all week but finished with a win. Up 0.6%, CL ended at $56.13 a barrel.

In earnings news, Big Lots (BIG) went big on Friday and rallied 13.6% after better than expected earnings. Costco (COST) was an earnings winner as well, up 5.1% on the day.

But National Beverage (FIZZ) fizzled after reporting worse than expected numbers. The stock finished Friday with a 14.7% loss.

It was a tough week for stocks. But it has still been a great year with the S&P up 9.4% YTD.

In fact, it has been a great 10 years!

Saturday marked the 10-year anniversary of the bull market, the longest on record. The S&P and DOW are up over 300% since stocks bottomed on March 9th, 2009.

If you don’t have a cellphone or cable box that changes the time for you, remember that it’s time to spring forward! Daylight Saving Time kicked in at 2am this morning, so most states in the U.S. have adjusted their clocks forward by an hour.

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